


Trails and Turns

by Cosmic_Firestorm



Series: Eyes Turned Skyward (The Flying Fish Series) [4]
Category: DCU, Green Lantern - All Media Types, Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Body Paint, Established Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Mush, Interspecies Romance, Painting, Storytelling, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9203258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Firestorm/pseuds/Cosmic_Firestorm
Summary: To be honest, Hallie didn’t know what the purpose of this was. All she knew was that Tomar-Re had requested it, saying it was a part of his culture he hadn’t introduced to anyone in the Corps, and hey, who could resist a man of mystery?





	

Hallie watched in awe as Tomar-Re ran a brush across the skin of her forearms, gestural sweeps of paint, sharp turns blending into soft curves. They were sitting across from each other in their civilian clothing, their legs tangled in white blankets. Hallie was doing her best to hold still, tensing only slightly at the tickle of the brush. Tomar was entirely taken up in his work, apparently not noticing her slight flinches as he purposefully swept color over her wrists and between her fingers.

To be honest, Hallie still didn’t know what the purpose of this was. All she knew was that Tomar-Re had requested it, saying it was a part of his culture he hadn’t introduced to anyone in the Corps, and hey, who could resist a man of mystery? That said, since they didn’t have their rings on, she was becoming increasingly curious about _what_ he was painting. The runes—or vast single rune; they all seemed to meld together—were foreign to her and Tomar didn’t seem like he was going to explain.

“You’d better not be writing, ‘Hallie Jordan is a reckless pilot’ or something,” she quipped at last.

Tomar-Re’s eyes didn’t move from his work, but they sparked with amusement nonetheless, and his long fingers pressed a bit more firmly against her skin. “Of course not. That is already a well-known fact.”

“Smart guy. You do know you’re painting it the wrong color?” she enquired innocently, tilting her head at him. “I thought we’d decided on that vanilla yogurt color.” It was a flat lie, of course; Hallie wasn’t an art buff, but she knew a beautiful painting when she saw one and this was just that: a maze of rust-reds and charcoal-grays, pale golds crossing browns so deep they were almost black, unfurling from her elbows to her fingertips. She could barely track which trails of the maze went where, but somehow Tomar managed it just fine.

 _Huh. Scientists and their attention to detail, I guess_.

Tomar-Re finally looked up, eyes shifting warily. “Yogurt?”

It was through sheer force of will that Hallie managed not to slap a hand against her forehead. “If we ever go on a formal date, we’re finding a planet that has yogurt, no matter how far it is! That’s a promise, even if it means we just go to Earth,” she announced.

“Is yogurt worth revealing my alien presence on your planet and causing a panic?” he countered teasingly.

“Oh. I guess not…but I’ll go down to the planet and get you some. We can have it in space,” Hallie amended. “Let’s just call it an important part of my culture that I haven’t shared…like this, whatever it is.”

Something in her tone must have alerted Tomar-Re to her confusion, as he perked up and reared his slim shoulders back slightly, cautiously defensive. “Is it not to your liking?”

“No, it’s not that! No, it’s…well, it might be more ‘to my liking’ if you tell me what it all means,” Hallie admitted, shrugging unknowingly and then biting back a gasp as the motion pulled her fingers away from his, smearing some of the ink. “Crap! Oh, crap, I’m sorry!”

“Don’t apologize, Hallie Jordan. The smears are just another part of the story,” Tomar remarked mildly. Hallie glanced up, brows furrowed, and he took her hands again, lightly tracing the brown trail where it intersected with the gold. “This represents you and I, finding each other, staying distinctive but eventually entwined. This…” He smoothed over the smeared gray. “…is the distance we’ve gone, the things we’ve seen together: the empty space, the lost worlds, the dying stars…The browns and golds are meant to bring a certain life to it.”

Hallie swallowed hard and kept staring. “They do,” she wanted to say, but couldn’t. The light in Tomar’s eyes softened, becoming more of a glow as he lightly ran a finger down the strands of red overlapping the rest of the story.

“This is devotion.” He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. Hallie smiled briefly and then bit her lip, wondering if she had just heard another word in hiding, one which might take a bit longer to say.

“Is it more to your liking now, Hallie Jordan?” the Xudarian questioned.

“It sure is. And…by the way, would you just call me by my first name already?” she whispered, interlacing her fingers with his and pulling him in to kiss his face, long and steady, lingering. He purred lightly, letting his eyes close, and Hallie made a mental note to get some Earth paint for him to use in the future, along with that tub of yogurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, I have this headcanon about Xudarians using touch as their main form of intimacy: wing preening, body painting, nuzzling... I love this headcanon so much <3


End file.
